A lesson in patience.

It's a beautiful, sunny Sunday here in Portland. I was getting ready to take my dog to the park and I looked in my backyard and saw that my plum tree is starting to flower. Oh my goodness. This makes me so excited. Over the next week the tree in my yard that I have only known as bare limbs is suddenly going to become a giant white flower.

Then, I walked out my door and took my dog over to the garden in my obligatory check of the rectangle of brown in hopes that the new sowing will have sprouted, even though I know it's too soon for that. And, lo and behold, sprouts! Lots and lots of little kale and radish sprouts. They are from the first sowing. I know this because we figured out after we put in the first seeds that we should have done our rows in the opposite direction. The second sowing has rows in the opposite direction, so if they both sprout it's going to be a confusing little plot of land in a few weeks. I just needed to be patient. The seeds that should have sprouted in about 6 days took 15 days instead. My faith is restored.

Another need for patience: pound cake. I had some people over last night and wanted to make some snacks. I also didn't want to spend much money. So, I went through my cookbooks and recipes and found a few things I could make with what I already had in the pantry. The only thing I had to buy special was a jar of artichoke hearts. Total money spent to make all the food for last night: $2.50.

Everything else were pantry items that I always have on hand. I made hummus, pita bread, veggies for dipping, cheddar artichoke quiche cups (leftovers made a yummy breakfast) and pound cake. I've never made pound cake before. I had never made any of these items before and it occurred to me about halfway through making everything that perhaps I should have chosen some recipes that I had tested. My oven also cooks hot. I've never put a thermometer in there to check, but cooking times in my oven are very skewed. I usually take things out about an average of ten minutes before the recipe says they should be done. Because of this I am terrified of overcooking and burning things in my oven. And I certainly didn't want a dry, burnt pound cake! So, I watched it carefully and took it out of the oven when I thought it was just almost done, it would finish cooking while it cooled, right? That's the way bread and cookies work. Not so much with pound cake. As it cooled it totally collapsed in the middle and revealed a gooey, uncooked center. The ends taste good though.

So, now I know to be patient with pound cake and let it cook through in the oven. And believe in your seeds. They are containers of life, and life knows how to grow itself better than I do. Now I just have to be patient and let my radishes grow. I guarantee you that there will be an entry in this blog telling you how I needed to wait longer to harvest my radishes because the bulbs didn't grow.

Baby Worms! Aw-w-w!

Last December we started a couple projects to make our house more sustainable. We made a worm compost bin so we can make our own soil and a doggy septic tank so we don't fill our garbage with poop and it can biodegrade. I didn't take any pictures of the septic tank, it's just a garbage pail in the ground with a bunch of dog poop in it. And who wants to look at that, really? I did, however, take pictures of baby worms!

Mike is out of town this weekend. He went up to Seattle to ride the Chilly Hilly on Sunday. Good luck, Mike! I love riding a bike, but I'm not such a fan of the hills, personally. Mike has taken over as the keeper of the worms and has taken care of their feeding and bedding and well being. Since he's gone this weekend I got to feed the worms. We have them in storage bins that we converted to a little worm condo. It's in the weird little closet behind our fireplace.

Check it out – baby worms! They're breeding!

Today I had coffee grounds and spinach ends and carrot peels and onion bits for them to eat. I hope they like it.

And here are my little baby broccolis! They all sprouted! Very exciting. Still no sprouts anywhere else though.

Failures and Successes

It's 10:30am and I have already eaten breakfast, drank some coffee (and a little more coffee), and sowed peas, kale, spinach and radishes. Oh, and we had our first sprouts this morning! It's sunny outside today, partly anyway; it's been back to rain and muck the last few days. Tomorrow the rain starts again until the end of time, also known as July. I grew up in Central Texas, a place that doesn't really have distinct seasons. Well, I take that back. It's a place that has two seasons, Spring and Summer. Year round it's either pretty mild, or it's really hot. Winters sit in the 60's most of the time, with gross fluctuations on either side for a couple days, but when Spring comes around there you know it from the wildflowers and the fact that it's 90 degrees before 10am. I'm living in a place now that really has all four seasons. It may not snow here in the winter, but it does rain, and winter has a very distinctive feel to it. It's so amazing to be someplace where the entire city collectively rejoices when Spring starts to poke through. There is such eagerness and excitement and you just feel in your bones that it's time to start growing things, to start things fresh. It's instinctual.

On that note, I would like to recommend the blog of a friend of mine from back in my college days. She is living a couple hours outside of the other Portland in Maine with a very similar goal and similar end to me. But she is a lot more eloquent than I am.

So, the first sowing of kale, spinach and radishes was about a week and a half ago. Nothing. We got nothing. The soil might have been too loose when we first planted and the seeds fell through or dried out. It might have been that we got some frost a couple mornings. Or that I watered late in the day and it cooled the seeds down too much when the sun went down. Maybe we watered too much, or not enough. I went out and dug up a couple corners to try and find what went wrong. There was a kale seed I found that had sprouted, but never made it to the surface. Maybe they were planted too deep. Anyway, massive failure on the first sowing. I just did the second sowing and the soil has packed down a bit now after being rained on for a week, and I think it will be more conducive to creating a nice bed for those seeds to germinate. Though, like I said, the rain is coming back tomorrow, forever and ever. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I also got the first sowing of peas set up in the back along our fence. I fertilized some, but I didn't use an innoculent. I did some research and people were split down the middle of the necessity of it. My Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades told me that most soil in this part of the world has enough of the right bacteria in it to start that an innoculent isn't necessary, and just a little bit of fertilizer should get your legumes off to a good start. So, I sowed, I fertilized, and now I wait, again.

Our one success so far is the sprouting of broccoli starters! Five seeds have sprouted so far. This is very exciting. There is hope for feeding ourselves yet.

Digital Age.

On this rainy afternoon, while I am trying to convince myself to go to the store and buy a bag of dirt so I can rip up my lawn (in the rain) and plant peas, I just logged onto FarmVille on facebook (so sue me) and planted some virtual onion seeds and had deja vu when I saw the little black seeds on the screen to yesterday when I planted real onion seeds. I guess that means I should get myself up, away from the computer and out in the rain and start digging.

Even more seeds.

So, I may have gone a little crazy with the seeds. I ended up walking across a large swath of SE Portland today and I went past The Urban Farm Store. I had tried to buy onion, broccoli and pea seeds the other day at a nursery closer to my house, but they were out of all but the broccoli. I figured I would just stop in and see if they had the onion and peas here and then order the rest of my seeds online from Uprising Seeds. I bought my first round there, and already had my wishlist for the rest of the season saved in their online store. I walk in and it turns out they actually carry Uprising Seeds there, along with several other brands that are organic or heirloom variety. So, I went to town and bought a lot of seeds. I impulse bought a lot too, which I know I'm not supposed to do. So, now I need to find some space for lettuce, cilantro, echinacea, epazote and chamomile. Plus I bought bush beans, and I told myself I would get pole beans. But they had those purple dragon ones and I really wanted them. Sigh. So, I have a lot of seeds now.

I added my two onion varieties to my starter pallet in the window. And tomorrow I need to cut up some grass along our fence and make space for peas!

Sick and tired and waiting.

I've taken a few days off from the blog. This house has been infected by The Cold! I was laid out for a few days, and then I passed it on to Mike and he's still on the couch. I've been busy making soup and doing some more garden planning. When I really sit down and try to figure out where and when I'm going to plant everything my head nearly explodes. I had no idea it would be such an overwhelming task to and figure all of this out. Sigh.

I have been working off of four books primarily. The Edible Garden, which I bought a couple years ago. It's a great overview of planning, year-round gardening, and has about a page devoted to each vegetable with lots of big, pretty pictures, which I like. Mike had Organic Gardening for Dummies, which is always a handy reference. For Christmas I bought The Urban Homestead, which covers not only gardening but lots of home improvement ideas to make your house and life more sustainable and self-sufficient while still living in the middle of the city (the authors also keep a blog that I follow, Homegrown Evolution). And my most recent addition, Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. The climate here is very unique; it's really a temperate rainforest. The summers are relatively cool, so growing things like tomatoes and peppers present a challenge, but the winters are quite mild, albeit wet, which allows for a functional year-round garden. This book has been great because it really addresses issues, tips, and the best varieties for our specific climate.

I've gone through my calendar for the year and roughly planned out when to start my seeds for each crop indoors, or sow outdoors, or transplant. I'm feeling a little more prepared. As for the seeds we planted last week....still waiting. Every morning we go outside and it's still just a bunch of brown dirt. No green poking through. I'm getting a little worried this is all going to be a complete and utter failure, but we are still in the normal window for the germination of the seeds we put down, so I'm sure it will all work out.

I'm starting some seeds inside today. I don't have a light set-up, but I do have a really large southern-facing window with ledges. So, we'll make due. I'm starting off with broccoli and am ordering a plethora of seeds for the rest of the season later this week.

Seeds!

I can't believe that just three days ago I didn't have a garden yet. Now, it's done, it's planted, it's germinating as we speak! Yesterday was my first official day of unemployment and I have to say it was far more productive than most days of employment. We got the dirt to fill in the beds. I was even able to use the shovel some, albeit using my other arm and leg as leverage, but still, I'm excited that my arm is becoming more functional.

I baked some bread. This has been one of my intentions for several years now, which has ebbed and flowed over time, to bake my bread instead of buying it from the store. Either you spend $3-$4 on a good loaf of bread or you buy a spongy white bread that has an encyclopedia of ingredients and preservatives in it. Baking it myself makes it cheaper and healthier. Plus you get to eat bread right out of the oven.

Since my accident I have actually been baking a lot. Staying at home for almost a month really brought it out in me. Yesterday I just went with classic white bread, I got the recipe from a Martha Stewart magazine that my mom sent me. And it was pretty darn good! It has the best flavor of any white bread I have made and I am definitly going to have to make it again.

Mike made a triple-decker grilled cheese out of it. It was amazing.

Today it was sunny outside. I actually went into my yard and took off my sweater! I worked outside with short-sleeves on! It's going to break my heart when it starts raining again and I realize it's technically still winter. But, we went outside and sowed our first batch of seeds; kale, spinach and radishes. We watered it down and now we just have to sit and wait and hope the sun does it's job and wakes the little seeds up. Hooray!

The Raised Beds.

So yesterday was the big day. No, not Valentine's Day (although my valentine got me a morter and pestal, which is awesome), it was the day we built the raised beds for the garden. This project has been stressing me out for weeks. We have talked about it and gone over it again and again and I just couldn't seem to make a decision. Should we build the beds? Should we sow directly in the ground? How high should they be? How big should they be? What kind of wood should we use? Where are we going to get the dirt? How much is this going to cost? I recently lost my job too, victim of the recession, and today is actually my first official day of unemployment. Because of this I am terrified of spending money. On anything. This is a project that will pay for itself by the end of summer, but taking that money out of my bank account right now was still enough stress to give me a migrane and make me cranky and not much fun to be around. But, now it's done.

My garden plan changed to something much simpler. Three beds, all the same size, which will be roughly divided into a Fall/Winter Bed, a Spring Bed, and a Summer Bed. This made the whole thing more managable and less overwhelming. We settled on a compromised height of 8” and went with Douglas Fir for the wood. Cedar would last longer, and I will likely have to replace these beds in a few years after the wood rots through, but cedar was about three times as expensive as fir and I just couldn't do it.

The other saving grace of this was Mike's mom and her husband. They came by with their truck and took us to the store and helped us pick out the wood and the materials we needed, and then helped us assemble the beds.

We got back from the store and laid the wood out in the yard roughly where we wanted it. And it promptly started pouring down rain. But, we're Oregonians! A little rain never stopped us.

First box: DONE!

Mike pounding in the stakes to hold the boxes in place.

And they are done! That wasn't so bad.

Today Mike is going to pick up some bulk soil to fill in the boxes. And then the gardening can begin!

A girl's best friend: The freezer.

One of the things I have become very fond of doing is freezing things. I like to cook a lot of food and then freeze it. That way I have lots of ready to eat meals or side-dishes that are just a thaw away. I am a particular fan of making soup, and this freezes very easily, which is probably why I started doing this in the first place. It's an easy thing to do and it saves you money and time. I try to have some bags of soup, pasta sauce, red chile, beans and maybe a loaf of bread on hand in the freezer at all times.

I came across a great “Make-Ahead Mac and Cheese” from Cook's Country that I tried out earlier this week. It's a recipe specifically desinged to freeze and reheat well. I must say it was delicious and I now have a baking dish of Mac and Cheese in my freezer that I can pull out some night I don't feel like cooking.

Today, however, I am making one of my new staples. I used to make a big pot of pinto beans and freeze out 2 or 3 quart-size bags. They were great as side dishes, or to go with my oft made huge New Mexican breakfasts, and you could turn them into refriend beans easily too. I never had much of a recipe for it other than to simmer with salt, oregano and maybe some bacon if I felt so inclined, for a few hours. And it always turned out just fine for me. But, I recently discovered the Homesick Texan recipe for black beans and I am never going back. Cooking from dried beans is so much more delicious than getting them from a can, and if you make a big batch one day and freeze it, it's almost as convienient. This recipe is pretty simple: carrots, onion, garlic, cilantro, tomato, lime, chipotles, broth and beans.

I have it simmering on the stove right now to go with the Green Chile Pie I am making tonight (one of my mother's staples. It's delicious.) with plenty leftover for Huevos Rancheros, fajitas, burritos, and some to go in the freezer for later.

Trees that make food.

Last summer I started volunteering for the Oregon Food Bank in their Learning Garden. They have two gardens where they grow fresh fruit and vegetables (and have chickens for eggs) to give to the Food Bank. I volunteered several times last year and learned a lot about gardening in the process. I got to mulch, plant watermelon starters, pick all varieties of beans, harvest Chard, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and feed chickens. I'm really looking forward to when the garden reopens this spring for the volunteers. But, this weekend they are hosting a fruit tree pruning workshop, which Mike and I are attending.

The last place I lived I learned what happens when you let a fruit tree go wild. My house becamse dubbed “Pearhouse”. In the backyard there was a pear tree, maybe 30 feet high. There was no way to get to the fruit that was growing and apparently if you let a fruit tree get that large it bitters the fruit. And also apparently when full grown pears drop from 30 feet they are scary!! It literally got to the point that I would put on my bicycle helmet if I had to do something in the yard. A couple pears grazed me and hit my side, but I thankfully never had a direct hit. Every few days I would go into the yard and load up all the fallen pears into baskets and throw them over the fence into the empty lot next door. It was ridiculous the amount of pears that would fall. And I would have to try and pressure wash the deck with the garden hose to get the pear guts off and the wasps away. It has a headache! And the worst part was I never got to eat one of the pears. They were too bitter and would pretty much explode when they hit the ground anyway.

One of the many selling points of my house now was that it already had four fruit trees on the property (and apparently my neighbor has a walnut tree that drops half in my yard). In the back yard there is a cherry tree (right) and an apple tree (left). They are both pretty large, but not so large that they can't be riegned in. In the front yard there is a small pear tree and a small apple tree and these are just the perfect size. The problem is none of these trees have been pruned well. They all need some love and some guidence, and the ones in the back do not need to get any bigger or else we'll have another “Pearhouse” on our hands.

So, I am really looking forward to heading over to the OFB Garden tomorrow morning to not only help them prune their trees in the little mini-orchard, but also to learn how to keep my trees in check so that next fall I can take all the fruits and use them and preserve them and get the most out of the food that my land is already producing for me.

Window of Sun: Missed

This is what the garden plot looks like this afternoon (and my badly pruned apple tree on the left). It's sun! Today would be a great day to start. If only it weren't the SuperBowl and I weren't sick.

At least I had the good thought to bake cookies yesterday.

A girl. A plan. A garden. Vegetables.

When I get excited about something I plan incessently. I make lists, diagrams, scale cutouts, most of which are completely unneccesary, but give me a sense that I am moving forward instead of just sitting around and waiting. Before going off to college I made cutouts of my bed and furniture and a scale model of my dormroom, a hefty 9' x 11'. Of course this was completely unneccesary. With a room that small there really isn't any option of arrangements, especially when the desk is built into the wall. But, I was excited and I just wanted to feel involved.

With the start of my garden I have done the same. I have made lists of all the vegetables I could possibly want to grow, cross-referenced the space they need, the season to plant them, etc. And I made a smaller list of just the ones I can plant this year when I am starting out. From that I bought my first round of seeds: Kale, Spinach, Radishes, Carrots and Chard. From that I have taken it one step further and into the digital age. I found an online garden planner that is basically virtual graph paper, but also includes lots of cool harvest tracking capabilities. Anyway, I'm prety excited that I could find something to channel my excitement into.

So, here is my garden plan so far. I'm going to start out in the front yard because the land is already level and given time, money and physical restraints, leveling the side yard and building a retaining wall is a little out of our league right now.

By next weekend we should be buildling our raised beds and filling them with dirt. And then I won't just have to sit inside and imagine and look at my lists, but I can start doing and get out in the dirt. Fingers crossed it's not raining next weekend...

Aus dem Garten: Beginnings

Hello. My name is Liz. Ever since I was a kid I had a dream of living in the woods in a cabin away from everything. I wanted to gather water from the stream and ride a horse into town. I never understood why people drove cars when they could just as easily ride a horse. People used to do it, why don't we do it now?

I grew up in Texas on a few acres outside of Austin where the topsoil is about six inches thick before you hit solid limestone. I had a small patch of garden once with my mother. We grew snapdragons, but the heat of summer killed them off quickly. That was my entire experience gardening until I was in college. My boyfriend at the time and I took over a plot of land in his parent's backyard in Albuquerque and grew a vegetable garden. The first time I witnessed the literal fruits of my labor I was hooked. It was the first time I really made the connection of the food you buy at the store coming from the ground. I lived in a string of apartments for several years after and never got to have a garden again. Not really. I grew basil in a pot in the window and had an aloe plant in my dorm room, but that was all.

Now, I am all grown up and have settled in Portland, OR. The last two years I have lived in condos or rental houses where I was able to grow a few plants. Last year I was even able to have legitimate harvest days and fill a basket with tomatoes, zucchini, bell peppers, and tomatillos. Since then my mind has been constantly on the next garden fix.

So, I did it. I finally bought a house of my own. A homestead. The thing I have been yearning for the past six years while I was bouncing from city to city, apartment to apartment. And now all I want to do is make my little cabin in the woods I have wanted since I was a little girl. Except I'm in the middle of the city. Which isn't so bad. I ride a bike instead of a horse and I walk to the market or the pub and I will hopefully feed myself from my land. And I want chickens. And I kind of want a goat, even though everyone says they are annoying; I could have milk and butter and cheese right in my backyard. I have a pretty big lot of land for living in the city and I am going to take advantage of it.

When I bought the house the yard was a blank slate. Well, it's still a blank slate, but I've only been living there a few months and it's really been raining the whole time. We had one of the warmest Januarys on record here in Portland and I am already starting to see buds and blooming. I've ordered my winter crop seeds, and now I just need to build my beds and get some dirt and then it will begin.

Not two months after I moved into my house was I on my way to work on my bike on a crisp, clear and cold Friday morning when I got hit by a car. It was even at the intersection I was always nervous of; I guess I had good reason. I was thrown from my bike and broke my ulna and patella. I had to have surgery and a metal plate and seven screws put in my arm. I haven't been able to do much for the past month and a half, but I am starting to get more mobile now. I have another surgery on my arm in about a month to look forward to, and I still can't do a whole lot with my left arm, and I'm not supposed to kneel or squat for a while longer (which should make gardening fun!). But thankfully I have the help of my lovely assistant and loved boyfriend, Mike. And our dog, Lemon. She can help to. And the cats. They love to help in the garden. So, I think I should be good.